In a recent post I discussed the incredible low turnout of the Los Angeles' Mayoral primary. Informative Avenue (check out there blog here http://informativeavenue.wordpress.com/), commented suggesting that LA does care at least a bit more about the mayoral race than those March numbers suggested and that we can expect to see the turnout percentage pick up when Garcetti and Gruell finally have their showdown. I think these are some great points and that we can expect to see more interest in the race now that it is past a very non-competitive top two primary. I agree with these sentiments, but that being said I think there is another reason worth highlighting as to why LA has had extremely low turnout;  the Los Angeles vote by mail policies.
Los Angeles has some of the worst numbers for voting by mail, and registered voter who have chosen Permanent Vote by Mail. A poor PVM percentage tends to lead to a lower turnout. John Wildermouth of Fox & Hounds made a great case for Los Angeles shifting to a full vote by mail system.

"When the leading candidate for mayor, Eric Garcetti, collects the votes of fewer than 100,000 of the city’s 1.8 million registered voters, it’s not time for fiddling around the edges of voting rules. Go big or go home.
If Los Angeles really wants a truly representative election, the city needs to go 100 percent vote-by-mail. Right now.
It’s not that shocking an idea, really. More than half of California’s votes were cast by mail last November. For the lower turnout June primary, it was 65 percent.
Even in Los Angeles, which for a variety of historical reasons has one of the lowest percentages of permanent vote-by-mail voters in the state, more than 40 percent of those voting in last week’s election cast ballots by mail."

http://www.foxandhoundsdaily.com/2013/03/if-you-want-voters-time-to-try-mail-only/

Wildermouth is certainly correct that LA's history and relationship with voting by mail is a complicated one, however the current major source of resistance is Dean Logan, the Registrar for Los Angeles County.
Logan has repeatedly gone on the record stating his beliefs against voting by mail.

In the New York Times: 'Dean C. Logan, the registrar for Los Angeles County, said the rate was partly a byproduct of the popularity of voting by mail in California and partly a function of how the state defines rejected ballots. Its definition includes ballots that voters requested but that the Postal Service returned to election officials as undeliverable.Voter behavior is changing and evolving,” Mr. Logan said. Young people do not sign their names as consistently as older ones, he said, and mail delivery is becoming less reliable.'

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/06/us/politics/us-voting-flaws-are-widespread-study-shows.html?_r=0

The county has the least money and policy invested into voting by mail, consequently LA County has had the lowest vote by mail percentages in the state, and now an overall voter turnout that is lower than the state average (in both the 2012 general and 2013 primary elections). Pretty embarrassing for on of the largest and wealthiest counties in the state. 

It is certainly true that we may me see an uptick in voter turnout now that Gruell and Garcetti are beginning to lay into each other a bit more and make this a more exciting campaign, but the fact remains that Los Angeles has a broken voting process. The state is rapidly moving toward a full vote by mail system (like that of Oregon). Logan's failure to keep pace has led to Los Angeles falling behind the state average in voter turnout.

Conflicting Consultants

California has become an increasingly expensive place to wage a campaign. This is especially true in the large expensive cities of Los Angeles and San Fransisco. Political consulting firms have grown more powerful over the last two decades, and one of the services they offer, direct mail, has become and expensive yet integral part of any successful candidate.
Since 2004, Mack|Crounse has been the industry leader of direct mail consulting. The firm has had a huge impact on the California political landscape, working for many progressive Democrats all across the state, they even worked on the Obama campaigns, and made millions along the way.
However, this past week Mack and Crounse split and the powerful firm dissolved.
http://www.rollcall.com/news/conflicting_interests_split_top_democratic_firm-223371-1.html?pg=1
It appears Crounse had been taking jobs for Democratic candidates who were running against fellow Dems in top two primaries. Crounse acted on their behalf unbeknownst to Mack through a shell corporation. Though none of the campaigns conflicted with Mack|Crounse clients directly, they were opposite many of the unions and organizations that employed Mack|Crounse.
When Mack heard the news, the firm folded. Both men have taken several employees from the old firm and plan to start new, competing firms.
Aside from being a bizarre and intriguing story, the breakup of Mack|Crounse has some immediate political implications. As one of the largest firms in the state, their breakup may create a power vacuum leading to the rise of several smaller up and coming firms. The two men will try to retain as many of their old clients as possible but remains to be seen how much of a consulting shuffle this will cause.
This story also highlights how modern California politics work. In a state now controlled by a Democratic super majority, Democrats pitted against Democrats has led to more and more uglier struggles between candidates, lobbyists, and consultants with similar visions. The top two primary has led to fiercer primary battles within parties. It has also become clear that direct mail is here to stay, especially in high populated areas like Los Angeles. Consultants have a growing role in California politics, as they experience economic growth it is imperative for a firm to prevent greed from blinding their overall vision and goals.

Paul Rand's Filibluster

The Junior Senator from Kentucky rose to speak, and he just kept on speaking. When he was finally done he had propelled himself to the vanguard of the Republican Party, in the process the sacred political institution of the filibuster received yet another blow. A few weeks ago nobody outside of Kentucky knew who Rand Paul was. At that time, the young guns of the Republican Party were Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, and Ted Cruz. Paul was not yet the Great Young Libertarian Hope of the RNC. Then Rand had his little Mr. Smith Goes To Washington moment and a star was born. A lot can change in thirteen hours. But in the midst of Rand’s big moment the filibuster took another hit. Paul’s and others actions have continued to change the definition of the filibuster. Once a quaint if not desperate attempt to give voice to the minority, the filibuster has morphed into an unstoppable monster that feeds off political gridlock.

When the dust and Paul’s throat had finally cleared, the Fifth amendment stood protected, Brennan was confirmed, and America was safe from diabolical murder drones. So what really happened? Paul’s coming out party happened, along with the birth of his 2016 presidential bid.

            This was never about Brennan. It was never about drones. It was never about the Fifth Amendment. It was about Paul.

            Shortly after his filibuster Rand spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Then he won the CPAC straw poll, usually a strong indicator of the next GOP presidential nominee.

            He gave a speech that sounded almost identical to the repetitive pseudo libertarian ideology that made up the majority of his filibuster. Suddenly Paul has a stump speech.

Obama used his keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention to test out his stump speech upon the world. Paul was not the rising star he is today during the 2012 convention. Unlike Obama he did not have the opportunity to be the keynote speaker at the RNC convention.

So he took matters into his own hands. He found a way to twist a CIA nomination into a discussion of his solution for the struggling GOP’s identity crisis. Paul tried his stump speech out on the senate floor, and he found a way to make the whole world watch. You may only have caught a sound bite of Paul’s speech, but that’s all you needed to get the gist of his vision of an RNC 2.0.

It was a savvy political and marketing move. In the age of social media Paul managed to reach his target base of the “college libertarian” by one of the oldest, played out tricks in the book.

There is a great deal of irony in watching the 140-character Twittershpere blow up over a man rambling about nothing for thirteen hours. But the gambit worked and Paul’s name is trending; not just on twitter or Facebook but on traditional news outlets, and more importantly in 2016 presidential polls.

I do not fault Paul for making a thinly veiled personal move on the senate floor. Every senator in history has done that. I blame him for misusing the filibuster and thus adding ammunition to the growing movement to end or severely cripple it.

            Presidents Obama and Bush used so many executive orders that the American public has come to view that strategy as normal as opposed to extreme. In similar fashion the Republican Party has used or threatened to use the filibuster during the last few years more then any other time in U.S. history. It has been a successful strategy, but just as with executive orders, it is a misuse of a small constitutional loophole, almost an oversight.

            Many would argue for the destruction of the filibuster all together. Harry Reed has certainly grown sick of it and was behind the late January filibuster reforms. Reforms that were intended to streamline the process and make filibusters more rare.

            It seems those reforms did not work. I do not believe that any reforms would work; the inherent power of the filibuster is that once a legislator starts talking only his own body can really put a stop to him. There is no real way to change that.

Nor am I in favor of abolishing the filibuster. The filibuster has a certain mystique in the American political landscape. The great equalizer, it gives a voice to the minority in moments of desperation.

            The real way to stop filibusters, executive orders and the like is for congress to become a little bit less polarized. Political gridlock is the cause for these desperate measures. Republicans and Democrats need to take a step back and realize that as effective and attention drawing these filibusters and executive orders are they were never intended to be common components of the modern political lexicon.

            Paul claims his basic beliefs lie in opposing big government; and he believes that this same message appeals to the young base he is working so hard to gain. Ironically, I cannot think of a better example of big government then a half empty senate room held hostage by a self aggrandizing senator speaking on murder drones and his own future amid a government sequester.

            The filibuster is like a comet; they are entertaining to watch every now and again but I’d be all right if I did not see another one for seventy years.

How will the Sequester Impact Los Angeles?

We are now approaching week two of the sequester with no end in sight to the political gridlock that caused it in the first place. Perhaps we have all been distracted by a certain thirteen hour speech, but the sequester has not seemed to attract the same buzz and attention that the fiscal cliff reached. And that is a shame, because unlike the "fiscal cliff," sequester is a real word, is actually happening, and will have widespread affects, even here in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, no one is sure what exactly those affects will be.
If you are unfamiliar with the sequester, here is very informative article discussing the national implications it holds:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/02/20/the-sequester-absolutely-everything-you-could-possibly-need-to-know-in-one-faq/

But what about California? The above post claims that California stands to lose more jobs than just about every state; over 200.000. Only Virginia and Maryland (with their numerous D.C. and defense jobs) are in the same league.
However, the city of Los Angeles recently released a statement giving a much more specific breakdown as to which jobs and agencies are in danger:

http://ceo.lacounty.gov/pdf/portal/Sequestration%20022513.pdf

As you can see, the Departments of Public Health, Senior Services, and Community Development are the only programs that will be seeing significant cuts. LA also has defense interests and jobs, but not as much as other areas of California. So at first glance the outlook does not look so bad, but the comes the kicker:
"The ultimate fiscal impact of the 2013 sequester on the County cannot be determined at this time because non of the 12 FFY 2013 appropriation bills, which fund discretionary programs have been enacted. Instead, all discretionary programs are temprarily funded under a Continuing Resolution through March 27, 2013."
Healthcare and other Los Angeles service will currently see small cuts; if this sequester in not ended by the end of March, then we will begin to see major effect form the sequester at our local level.
With Los Angeles government in the middle of an election cycle, and fairly powerless to deal with such a federal matter, the city is forced to rely on a swift end to Washington gridlock. This week we have seen a thirteen hour filibuster over a nomination and the 5th amendment. Then on Saturday night President Obama made a few sequester jokes at the annual Gridiron Dinner (glad to see the sequester did not halt this important event). If Washington can not get it act together and push for something differnt then yet another stop gap that only pushes the deadlines ahead a few months, then Los Angles  and the rest of the country will face some serious cuts in services and jobs next month.

Poll Shows Mayoral Race to be Stuck Right Where it Began

The final poll for the mayoral election race finds Garcetti and Greuel in the lead with 27% and 25% of the vote respectively.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-poll-mayor-20130302-g,0,5632576.graphic
Conducted by the LA Times and USC, this poll shows what many all ready knew; this has all but become a two person race. But as we look ahead to the May election, it is important to notice what else this poll show us. No candidate had gained a real advantage and Los Angeles' citizens are not excited about this election.

'"Voters don't appear to have very strong feelings about anyone who's running or anything they're talking about," said Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh School of Politics at USC.
The USC Sol Price School of Public Policy/L.A. Times Los Angeles City Primary Poll found that both Garcetti and Greuel have had limited success in building a base among the major constituencies they have targeted. Their similar records and Democratic views have left them in something of a middling stand-off.'
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-poll-mayor-20130303,0,6577652.story

The two certainly have similar resumes. Garcetti has served on city council since 2001, Greuel since 2002. Both are lifelong politicians, though Greuel worked as an executive at Dreamworks from 1997-2002. Both are fairly progresive Democrats. Greuel has focused on her corruption ans waste cuts, Garcetti has pointed to hard budget decisions he has made while serving as city council president.

In failing to distinguish themselves from one another they have been unable to cultivate strong bases, something that will make this runoff more challenging for each candidate. Garcetti has ties with the Latino community, and though he leads that demographic, he has failed to truly win its support. This is an area he needs to improve in if he hopes to follow in the footsteps of Mayor Villaraigosa who controlled the Latino demographic in his wins. If Greuel (or Perry if she somehow sneaks through) would be the first female mayor of Los Angeles. Surprisingly this had little affect in the USC/LA Times poll.When asked what affect it would have for a candidate to be the first female mayor of Lo Angeles, 71% said it would have no affect at all.

Other than being the most experienced, big name candidates Greuel and Garcetti have failed to get many people outside of their districts to fully support them. Since the very first polls nothing has changed, Garcetti has a slim edge, he and Greuel seem destined for the runoff. Throughout this campaign Greuel and Garcetti have conducted a fairly friendly campaign, rarely going at one another. Garcetti has been a marginal frontrunner for much of the race, but everything will reset once this elecction finally boils down to Greuel and Garcetti on March 6. There is going to be about fifty percent of the electorate up for grabs. Greuel and Garcetti must find ways to separate themselves or else remain in a boring yet unpredictable stalemate, limping toward the finish line in May.